## B. CORRESPONDENCE WITH BEBEL AND GREULICH.
## A. BEBEL — V. I. LENIN ¹).
February 3, 1905.

Dear Comrade!

From various quarters the presidium of German Social Democracy is being asked to attempt to intervene in the deplorable conflict between the adherents of Vera and Iskra. This conflict, which arose long ago, is now exerting an especially pernicious effect on the condition of the Party, taking into account the situation of affairs in Russia.

I have been entrusted with presiding over an arbitration court, which is to comprise myself and two representatives from each of the disputing parties, for the purpose of rendering a judgment regarding the disputed points.

The two representatives to be introduced by each party according to its choice must not, however, belong either to Russian or to Polish nationality, nor to any of the peoples subject to the Russian government (Latvians, Finns, etc.), in order to prevent any possible suspicion of bias on the part of the judges.

The arbitration court is to investigate the situation completely objectively.

Furthermore, I assume that in the event of your acceptance and that of your friends of such an arbitration court and the selection of judges for it, you and your friends are also ready to submit to the judgment of the arbitration court.

The arbitration court is to meet in Zurich.

The time of the court's session will be communicated to you as soon as arbitration judges have been designated from both sides and both parties have expressed their agreement to the conditions under which the arbitration court is to proceed.

A further condition is the cessation, from the day on which you and your friends decide to accept the arbitration court, of all polemics against the side with which you have been struggling until now.

It goes without saying that identical promises will be demanded from the opposing side.

I assume that you and your friends will be glad to put an end to the schism and mutual struggle between party comrades standing on identical principled ground. News of this schism has caused great confusion among international Social Democracy and definite dissatisfaction, and everywhere there exists the expectation that, after free discussion, both parts will be able to find common ground for struggle against the common enemy.

I request that you inform me as quickly as possible of the decision of yourself and your friends.

With socialist greetings, A. Bebel.

Please seal your letter to me and address it to Berlin, German Reichstag, in my name ²).

¹) Bebel's letter, addressed simultaneously to Lenin and to the Mensheviks, was published in Iskra No. 86, dated February 16 (3), 1905. The Mensheviks' reply of February 7 (January 25) is found there as well. The Menshevik Party Council accepted Bebel's proposal and selected K. Kautsky and Clara Zetkin as judges. Lenin's reply is given below in letter No. 2. Notice of receipt of the letter addressed to Lenin was reported in Vperyod No. 8, of February 28 (15), in a note to the agenda of the planned congress.

²) The letter was written in German in A. Bebel's handwriting. — Ed.

The original text of Lenin's reply to Bebel is unknown to us. However, among Vladimir Ilyich's papers there has been preserved a draft of his reply, written in German, which we reproduce below alongside a Russian translation. The crossed-out lines were not included by Lenin in the final text of his reply to Bebel. This is evidenced both by the exposition of the letter's contents by Lenin himself (see Works, Vol. VII, footnote on p. 438), and by a leaflet which the editors of Iskra addressed in 1905 to "Party Members." The leaflet cites the German text and a translation of the letter, which essentially coincides with the uncrossed portion of Lenin's draft. The reply to Bebel was also sent in the name of one of the members of the B.K.B., and the text of this reply was likewise composed by Lenin. We reproduce this reply below (pp. 482-483).

The B.K.B. itself also replied to Bebel's letter. Its reply was published in No. 44 of Vperyod, of March 23 (10). In its reply the bureau emphasized that the essence of the intraparty struggle within Russian Social Democracy did not bear a "personal or, at most, group character," but constituted a "collision of political ideas." The question, therefore, could only be decided by a party congress, not by a court.

There was no special report on Bebel's letter at the congress, although the editors of Vperyod had intended to place it on the agenda of the congress (see the draft agenda of the 3rd congress, Vperyod No. 8 of February 28 (15), 1905). The letter, however, was discussed, and the delegates who spoke in the debate confirmed the point of view set forth in the letter of the B.K.B. (Congress Protocols, pp. 62, 63, 66, 67, 73.)